Thursday, December 29, 2011

Hello there! Today I'm going to share with you some of my favorite layouts of 2011. It's been so much fun looking back through everything I've created over the past year and seeing the girls grow before my eyes.

1) We Love(?) Snow - I created this layout as part of "Love" week at American Crafts as their guest designer in February. This layout is also in Scrapbooks Etc. February 2012 issue for a feature on snow-themed projects. This one just tells the story of my girl's personalities when it comes to trying new things. One's a real go-getter and the other is a little more cautious. :)

2) Proud to be Free - I was blessed to work with Pretty Little Studio this past year and this was one of my last layouts on the team. I loved working with the "Antique Store" collection so much. Our family on the 4th of July this year...

3) First Pony Ride - I created this layout using the "Life Documented" collection by Simple Stories when I guest designed for Emma's Paperie this summer. Look for more Simple Stories projects from me this next year - they are one manufacturer that I have just fallen in love with!

4) Jolly Signs of 2 - I am a long time Melissa Frances fan and this layout was created to showcase the signs (double the ornaments and stockings) of the girls' first Christmas. This layout was published in a special issue of Creating Keepsakes - Scrapbooking Holidays & Celebrations.

5) 'Twas the Night Before Christmas - I have also been blessed to work with Pebbles, Inc. Here's a layout of the girls' Christmas jammies from last year. I also shared a tutorial on how to make the Christmas tree here.

6) A Day at the Patch - I love the "Gathering" collection from Authentique Paper so much! The color palette and patterns were one of my absolute favorites from this fall. We created so many special memories by including their grandparents in our visit to the pumpkin patch this year!

7) Deck the Halls - This is a very recent favorite created for Emma's Paperie. I absolutely love designing for Emma's each month and this layout was for a focus on ribbon. My girls were so into decorating the tree this year that I scrapbooked these photos right away.

8) Grandma's are Great - I have designed for Noel Mignon's kit club for almost two years and this layout was one I created with January's "Very Virginia" kit. I love this photo of Nora with her Grandma Mary (there just happened to be vintage sheet music in the kit with Mary's name on it). Both of my girls have such special relationships with all of their grandparents and I love documenting that.

9) Sweet Little Girls - I created this one using the February "Truly Scrumptious" kit from Noel Mignon and it's also featured in an article on doilies in the February 2012 issue of Scrapbooks Etc. Look at those little monkeys on their first Valentine's Day!

10) What Fun to Be A Princess - This one was created using August's "Salt Water Taffy" kit. This summer I made the girls princess crowns and wands and they had so much fun playing with them and making wishes. I love this age...the girls are just enraptured with the idea of princesses. I was also fortunate this year to work with Scrapbook Magazine in the UK and this layout was published in their December issue.

11) Lily's Thinking Face - I love capturing little quirks about the girls and this layout has one of them. Lily makes the cutest face when she's thinking really hard about something and these photos are completely candid of her in action. I used September's "Study Hall" kit and shared a tutorial on how I made the chevron and stitching here.

12) I used the October "Sleepy Hollow" kit for this layout that sums up Halloween from 2010. I kept the design very simple and allowed one major photo to shine of the girls in their Halloween costume.

13) Creating 2 Turkeys - I created quite a few two-page layouts this year and enjoyed the process of including many photos and telling longer stories. For this one I also included the girls' actual hand prints, and it was published in a special issue of Creating Keepsakes - Scrapbooking Holidays & Celebrations.

14) First Haircut - This is another layout using Simple Stories' "Life Documented" collection. I created the design so that each of the girls could take their respective page someday. I also made little vellum envelopes and included a lock of hair from their first haircut.

So there you have it! Some of my very favorites from this past year. If you would like to, you can also check out my post from 2010. I'm also working on putting together my favorite mini albums, projects and cards from last year as well so stay tuned for that post.

And in 2012, I will be continuing to design for Pebbles Inc. and Emma's Paperie. December was my last month on the Noel Mignon design team. I am so thankful to Noel for the opportunity to work with her beautiful kits each month. I'm still very much a fan of her kit club and in fact, have her January "Cabin Fever" kit on the way to me! :)

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Well, hello there! I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas! We had a wonderful Christmas with our girls. Lots of laughter and lots of great memories! Today I have a new project to share with you for Pebbles Inc. that I created for Mix & Match Monday this week. I combined a couple collections - Welcome Christmas and With Love. I love the bright colors of the Christmas collection mixed with the muted kraft of With Love. And as I said earlier on my blog, I just couldn't wait to scrapbook this photo of the girls waiting to ride the train and meet Santa.

A couple of the paper strips on the bottom are the "tear-off" part from the sheets of patterned paper and the rest are just cut.

I also took the toothpicks off the flags to create this little banner.

I'm still trying to get caught up on my December Memories album and hope to share more pages of it with you this week. Being sick last week really threw me for a loop and I was only able to get the necessities done for Christmas.

Have a great day! (I'm hoping to share some of my favorite layouts and projects of 2011 with you later this week).

Thursday, December 22, 2011

I'm back with the next four spreads of my December Memories album. I have fallen slightly behind again as I have been fighting off a cold the past week but I'm still plugging away at it trying to record and preserve our memories!

13) Family letter - Every year we put together a short letter to update our family and friends on what we have been up to in the past year. We also try to include a few photos of our family. The pocket page in the Fancy Pants album was the perfect place to add the letter.

14) New Christmas Pajamas - One of our favorite traditions is to buy the girls new pajamas each year. This year we went with super cute "Frosty" pajamas, and the girls love them!

15) Baking is Joyful - We had a baking morning with Grandma Mary and made cut-out cookies that we frosted. The girls had a great time baking with their Grandma. Lily was especially into rolling out the dough and cutting out the cookies. With the girls' food allergies, I was especially excited to find a mix that we could put together so they could have cookies!

16) Anticipation - The photo on the left has to be one of my all-time favorite photos and you will definitely be seeing it on a layout sometime in the near future! You can just tell by both of the girls' body language that they are just dying to ride that train! The "anticipation" of Christmas fun and activities has been so amazing to experience with the girls this year!

So there you have it! If I can get my act together, I'll have more to share soon! :)

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Good morning! Just thought I would pop in again today and share my layout for Emma's Paperie this morning. The designers are also focusing on ribbon this month and I worked with "Peppermint Twist" ribbons by We R Memory Keepers. I kept my design super simple for these photos of my family decorating the tree this year. A complete supply list is available here.

I created a large bow with the green striped organza ribbon that I tucked behind some of the other embellishments and then highlighted with a fabric brad.

And then I cut several pieces of ribbon to make a banner that I embellished with a Crate Paper sticker, Maya Road wood snowflake and My Mind's Eye rhinestone.

I'll have more of my December Memories album to share later this week. I didn't get as much accomplished yesterday as I wanted to as I was feeling pretty awful so I let myself have an afternoon and evening to rest but I'm hoping to get back into it today. These things won't get done on their own, you know?! :)

Monday, December 19, 2011

Happy Monday! Can you believe it's less than a week until Christmas? Wowza...do I ever have a lot to get done this week (as I'm the rest of you do too!). :)

Today I have a new layout to share that I created for the December Color Challenge over at Emma's Paperie. It's a beautiful combination of white, pink and red. I worked with the "Peppermint" collection by Crate Paper on my layout and pulled out the red, pink and white patterned papers and embellishments in this collection. The photos are from a cinnamon ornament making session we had earlier this month. You can check out a complete supply list here.

Here's the color inspiration the designers at Emma's Paperie used for this challenge (this photo is from Country Living).

And a couple of close-ups... I used label stickers by Create Paper for my journaling and part of the title.

I went to town with my EK Success label punch and used foam adhesive on several of the labels for added dimension.

I'll be back to share more of my December Memories album later this week. I need to take some time to sit down and work on it again. I'll be busy wrapping gifts, finishing up my Christmas cards, baking, finishing up a few assignments this week and hoping and praying no one else gets sick (I've seem to come down with a little something the past few days). 'Tis the season, right? :)

Friday, December 16, 2011

I have more pages in my December Memories album to share with you today - this time it's numbers 9-12. My approach to this album has not necessarily been a daily approach although several of the memories have fallen on that particular day. I'm keeping it simple, simple, simple and in more of a journal style. The Fancy Pants Brag Book in red has been absolutely perfect for this project! There was no preparation in advance whatsoever. I've just been putting the pages together as I go and have found that working on two pages at a time works best for my schedule.

In the past I have never completed a December Daily because the thought of adding one more project to my schedule during the month completely overwhelmed me. The way I have been approaching it this year has been completely doable and has very much kept me in the Christmas spirit. Oddly enough, I am much less stressed this year than in years past even though we are adding a lot more activities to our December schedule.

9) Snow? - Yes, that is snow with a question mark. If you are my facebook friend, you might have watched a little video of two little girls who created their own snow from the stuffing of my giant couch pillow. Take pictures first, right? Then discipline. :)

10) Special date - This past Saturday Glen went around town with Lily and Nora ran errands with me. It's not something we get to do very often so it was a fun memory to document. A little one-on-one time is wonderful!

11) Around the house - I've added some new decor this year. I have a couple projects I created myself (the Santa and Merry gift boxes) and then I picked up the Santa pitcher and record at an antique store. I also added some new vintage books to my collection as well.

12) Holiday Twinkle - This year we took the girls to Jolly Holiday Lights for the first time. They loved seeing all the Christmas lights and were quick to pick out the "car carts" at Hy-Vee, the gingerbread house and all the great tunnels we got to go through.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

I'm back today with more pages of my December Memories album (this time numbers 5-8). I have really been having a good time creating this album as the month goes on and it's inspired some actual scrapbooking as well.

5) Buddy the Elf - We introduced a new tradition with our new Elf-on-the-Shelf this year. The girls named him "Buddy". We might have just watched "Elf" so the name was conveniently fresh in their minds. :) We also picked up the animated movie that goes along with this tradition and it was fabulous in introducing him to our family. (There were even twin girls in the movie). We have been having a blast coming up with crazy things for Buddy to do each day (I don't know who has more fun with him - the girls or mom and dad!) Ha!

6) Decorating the Tree - For this page, I took advantage of the pocket to add a few more photos to this memory. The girls had so much fun decorating this year! Glen could barely get the tree started before the girls were trying to hang ornaments.

Here's the pocket page...

7) Coffee - I have a slight obsession with specialty drinks around the holidays but I do limit myself to one (or maybe two) a week. My favorite places to go are Panera, Caribou Coffee and Starbucks and I love that each place has pretty cups to go with their festive drinks. I used the actual coffee cup sleeves for each place on this entry.

8) Gingerbread House - We put together a gingerbread house this year. I discovered as I was mixing the frosting together that it had egg in it but we decided to put it together anyway. (My girls are both allergic to eggs). We had a minor incident with hives and red eyes but they were otherwise okay. It's a little difficult to stop two-year-olds from tasting the frosting but it was a fun time, nonetheless. :)

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

One of the traditions we have at my house is to buy the girls new Christmas-themed pajamas. Christmas is one of my favorite holidays to scrapbook, and the "Welcome Christmas" collection from Pebbles makes it easy to create bright, fun, whimsical layouts. I have a simple tutorial to share with you today on how to make a large Christmas tree from patterned paper that serves as the focal point of the design on my layout.

To get started, cut several strips of patterned paper in 1/2", 3/4" and 1" increments.

Cut ribbon notches on either end of the patterned paper and ink edges.

Cut each strip slightly smaller than the rest so that the strips stack and form the Christmas tree.

Once all the strips are cut, adhere to layout using foam adhesive on every other strip.

Punch a large star from patterned paper.

Insert a fabric brad in center of star and adhere with foam adhesive.

And here's the finished layout again! I just tucked my larger photo between a couple of the strips to help ground it to the page.